At Last, Earth’s Future Is a Truly Global Concern : With Yesterday’s ‘Doomsayers’ Vindicated, Only Political Leadership Is Lacking

Now that the environment has moved to the front page and dominates the evening news, it is no time for environmental activists, yesterday’s “doomsayers,” to relax. We have only reached the end of the beginning.

With Alaska’s wildlife being oiled to death, the Earth’s climate being altered, the stratospheric ozone layer being shrunk, hazardous wastes being recycled through drinking-water faucets, forests being cut 10 times faster than they are replanted, nuclear wastes being added daily to huge unsafe stockpiles, and humans--the cause of all these problems--being added at larger numbers than ever before, it is no wonder that the whole world has finally become alarmed about the security of life on Earth.

The recent quickening of international environmental conferences, treaties and protocols and of environmental speeches by world leaders are encouraging signs. But these are only words. We need action.

What needs to be done worldwide is already known--use energy more efficiently, develop alternate sources of energy, plant trees, recycle materials, further family planning, develop better contraceptives, practice more sustainable agriculture, establish and enforce more restrictive environmental laws, presume new chemicals guilty until proven innocent, stop squandering resources on killing machines and wars, and elect people who recognize these needs and are willing to put saving the world ahead of getting reelected.

The resources to do the job are available. What is required is the political will to allocate the resources.

No token increase in environmental protection programs will suffice. A significant investment in saving the biosphere is called for.

An initial infusion worldwide--let’s say $150 billion per year, or just slightly more than the $140-billion increase in the U.S. military budget over the past eight years--on the actions listed above would have a dramatic impact in altering the life-threatening trends of today.

Our government might respond to the strong current wish of the American people to reduce military spending, taking $50 billion per year from the Pentagon to put on the programs I have mentioned, thereby increasing the world’s common security. Western Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union could be encouraged to put up the remaining $100 billion. Then the heads of state of these nations could speak with authority about saving the world and could together spark a worldwide moral commitment to mutually assured survival.

It is time for more people to become environmental activists--to become part of the solution rather than remain part of the problem.

One could, for example, push both public and private institutions to further the more efficient use of energy, the most effective way to reduce acid rain, minimize global warming, lower oil imports and decrease the need for nuclear and coal-fired power plants.

A special challenge is to make more people aware of the great threats to the environment from nuclear weapons and population growth.

Nuclear weapons are the common enemy of all life. The nuclear ordnance on one American Trident II submarine could ignite enough major cities to produce sufficient smoke to block out sunlight, lowering temperatures and devastating agriculture and plant and animal life over wide areas of the world. Scientists have now thoroughly confirmed the potential for this so-called nuclear winter effect, which was first announced in 1982.

The huge nuclear-weapons stockpiles of the United States and the Soviet Union, and the growing British, French and Chinese stockpiles, make the chances of a catastrophe due to equipment failure, human error or unauthorized firing all the more probable. The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the shooting down by mistake of a commercial airliner by a modern sophisticated warship, an oil tanker straying out of a 10-mile-wide channel to hit a well-known reef illustrate the potential for human error to frustrate the most carefully designed safety programs.

To lower the number of nuclear weapons to some small fraction of today’s inventory and provide the remainder with multiple safeguards should be one goal of environmentalists.

To reduce the threat from population growth, increased investment in family planning is required. It is estimated that by tripling the $2.5 billion spent today on family planning in developing countries, they could reduce their average birth rate below the replacement level as all developed countries have already done. In this way the world’s population could be stabilized around 10 billion--about twice today’s population.

It should be clear that the world cannot wait much longer for invigorated action on a comprehensive global environmental agenda.